To The Last Page

Bad Blood  is a bit of a mixed bag. There’s a decent murder-mystery in there somewhere - not a great one, just a decent one – but the need to develop running characters in the series and with a tendency to give the reader a history lesson on New York at every opportunity, the focus and suspense element is all too often lost. The latest Alexandra Cooper novel starts off with a fairly conventional court trial, where Brendan Quillian is being tried for the murder of his wife. As he was out of the city at the time of her killing – a strangulation chillingly recorded on a phone message - Chief Prosecutor Alex Cooper has her work cut out for her. However, when Quillian’s estranged brother Duke is killed in a tunnel digging accident, it opens up a whole other line of enquiry for ‘Coop’, involving an ages-old feud between two New York families. Although it certainly delivers the constants twists and turns you would expect this kind of suspense novel to have, Bad Blood  (the title is a...

There is certainly scope to make something of The Riverman ’s Glasgow settings for a crime novel and Alex Gray’s novel certainly sets its targets right mixing old style corruption and murder with the gleaming tower-blocks and executive apartments of the renovated old dock area of the Clyde. Regardless of its cleaned-up image, prestigious office buildings and space-age designs, bodies still regularly turn up in the Clyde in the traditional manner. An important multinational accountancy firm has its headquarters there – Forbes-McGregor are a local company done good, with offices located across the world, however they have a foothold in some murkier dealings in Glasgow. When one of their senior executives tumbles onto the irregularities and fears an Enron-type scandal, he brings it to the attention of his superiors. The next time he is seen, he is being fished out of the Clyde by the Riverman, who patrols the waters and knows its dangers well. One dead body – fine; but two dead bodies in ...

Preposterous though it is, you can’t help admiring the scale and ambition of The Abduction – a big, bold, in-your-face American blockbuster of a thriller. A kidnapped child at the centre of all this furore is Gracie, the tough-cookie daughter of an outrageously rich and successful family. Her father is a computer billionaire, her mother a high-flying, high-profile lawyer. When Gracie is abducted at a school soccer game, it inevitably turns into a huge media event, particularly when a reward of $25 million is offered for her safe return. But surprisingly the kidnappers don’t take the parents up on their offer and there is no ransom demand made. Eventually, the family have to come to terms with the fact that their daughter is almost certainly dead. However, Gracie’s grandfather – a grizzled Vietnam veteran, fighting to contain the demons of the past and the flashbacks that torment him through heavy drinking – has a mystical psychic connection with the child and is convinced that she is ...

The title, the reader should be warned – particularly any potential male readers – refers to the old female biological clock syndrome. In The Egg Race , a lot of thirtysomething women are all in a crisis of some sort – the unmarried ones are broody and desperate to be married, while the married ones are sorry they settled down and didn’t pursue a more independent life. Oh, the pressures of being a pampered middle-class woman approaching 40! Stevie is 34 years old, broody and about to be married. She should be glad to be finally plucked off the shelf (“ she’d always feared that in love’s game of musical chairs, she’d be left standing ”), but in reality she has doubts, but are they over her boyfriend Jez or is it just the pressure of the wedding preparations? If the above quote quite early on isn’t enough of a warning of the direction this is all heading in, nor the advice that Stevie’s friend gives to her during wedding dress fittings (“ Never let the wrong size get between you and a fa...